we are in an ecomomic depression where banks can barely keep themselves afloat, and you want to loan your money out to some investment in hopes to see some return profits back? Save your money, best investment you can make right now.
start saving for a house. there is nothing better than buying houses, property value normally climbs more than it drops (buy in an area thats developing not delapidating (sp?)
Best to just hold on to it for now man…
Its not just specific markets that are too volatile right now… its the entire economy.
Imho, the collapse of just one more major market will really turn the entire country into total rubbish as far as almost any investment is concerned. Even staying diversified is not going to help you because EVERYONE is loosing.
If you’re that jumpy to put money into anything, I guess the only thing that would be worth while are things that are CLEARLY being sold under priced.
In my short buying (investment) life… I have picked up two cars from people looking to get rid of them at 50% of their value (never more than a few thousand), to avoid storing them for the winter, or a guy who had to move out of town within days. It sounds funny to invest in cars, but I also have a friend who is making a decent side income form “flipping cars.” With the loss in US buying power, look for more people to be buying used cars in the years to come. Someones loss could be your gain…
I’ve had some money in washington mutual for about 14 years, in that time it went from $700 to over $4000. i took some out for cars etc when i first started driving and got the balance down to around $1200 by march of 06. since then it jumped to 1400 and back down to 1100 where i moved it over to “the growth fund of America” which moves much quicker with the market. So pretty much when the market falls, this fund gets effected hard, but it works the same w/ when the market goes up, this fund will JUMP up with the right amount of money invested. and with the holiday season coming up, this fund is full of electronic and computer companies… (oracle, google, cisco, microsoft, apple, nokia, yahoo, sap, intel, texas instruments, best buy… to name a few)
Invest in financial stocks and then don’t look for a few years. You’ll see 500-1000% return if you pick ones that don’;t go out of business. Value to be had in pretty much any of them right now.
as always it’s an impossible question to answer because risk and needs vary for every person.
is john doe saving for a house?
is john doe going to retire in 10 years?
is john doe looking for large short term returns with a lot of risk?
how actively is john doe going to manage his money?
how soon does john doe need his money back?
and so on… it’s like asking “what is the best sports car”
there are some basic “rules to follow” in my mind
- always invest the maximum contribution to your 401k that you employer will match - but don’t invest any more than that because all you can buy are managed funds that have fees and company stock.
- left over money that you would have put into the 401k should instead be put in an IRA (or roth ira) where you can do anything that you would have done in the 401k but you can also day trade, buy any stock you like, etc etc etc… (basically you go from 8 options to infinite)
- keep as little money as you can in your checking account, put the rest of your basic savings in a high interest saving account like emigrantdirect or HSBC’s offering. move money back and forth as needed
- buy everything possible on a credit card with good rewards (make sure the reward part is worth at minimum 1% back cash value on all purchases). this will also allow more of your money to sit in the saving account earning you money for maximum time. also gets you 1% off or better on everything you buy in life which adds up over a year.
- beyond this play your saving vs. short term investments as needed for your goals. example: If you have $1000 that you don’t need right now but will need in a year then look at a bond or CD which will have low risk but make more money than a savings account.
- last of all if you want to gamble with the stock market (which is what most threads are about on here) then go for it, but use your discretionary income and understand that you’ll probably lose in the long run unless you really know what you are doing and will invest a minimum of one hour per company you are interested in per week on research.
and that’s all I have off the top of my head.
Duplex.
im all about my 3% HSBC Online savings account at the moment. My goal is have 10K in there in a year or so. Im too scared and dont make enuff right now to invest
head to head or head to toe?
i put 6% of my income into a 401k (which is fucking tanking)
$150/month into an IRA
whenever i have an extra $2-3k in my checking i push it into an hsbc savings account
this thread is becoming ripe for the advertising.
it really depends on what it is you are saving for and how long before you plan on using the money.
Joe is right about the financials, but you really have to pick the right ones. But I am more conservative and think it will be more like 20-30 years before you see those type of returns.
Personally I think investing in china is smart right now, or commodities. Commodities are not going to get much lower, especially with the dollar about to fall off a cliff.
Personally, I own a small amount of physical silver because I like more than cash on hand and put the rest in my savings account.
I invest my money in stocks and soon to be real estate.
Take all your money and move to a 3rd world country where you will be fuckin rich and get all the hookers and drugs you want
man, it’s pretty interesting. but, market really fvcked now.
thanks everybody for their inputs… 
keep em’ coming